The branded handset manufactured by LG Electronics on behalf of the fashion company Prada will be in Phones4U shops by today.

It seems that the deal between the mobile phone retailer and LG Electronics is a partial exclusivity deal. That is, Phones4U will have first bite of the Prada 3.0 cherry before any other retailer in Britain. How long this will last isn’t known.

So, if this ticks your box, what can expect from any Phones4U deal?

The handset is available at £31 per month and features a 4.3-inch NOVA display, an 8-megapixel camera, a dual core 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. It is powered by Android Gingerbread rather than Ice Cream Sandwich, although no doubt it will be upgradeable.

As the smartphone is a fashion accessory as well as a machine, the back is made from Saffiano leather-style material.

In other news, Hewlett Packard (HP) has apparently reincarnated its mobile phone operating system – WebOS. Rather than using it to create its own products, HP has decided to make the platform open source. The expected date for this is either the third or fourth quarter.

It seems that that this new approach to offering WebOS is the third time in almost as many years. However, HP is confident this time that going open source is the best solution rather than burying it completely.

“HP is bringing the innovation of the webOS platform to the open source community,” said Bill Veghte, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at HP.